


Once Upon A Time

by MorganaNK



Category: Inspector Lynley - All Media Types, Inspector Lynley Mysteries (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 10:46:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8283094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganaNK/pseuds/MorganaNK
Summary: Barbara's point of view, set between 'In The Blink Of An Eye' and 'Limbo'





	

**Author's Note:**

> Property of Elizabeth George and the BBC, no copyright infringement intended

Once upon a time things were very different. Once upon a time Tommy and I saw each other on an almost daily basis. Once upon a time we laughed together, worked together, argued together, drank together. Once upon a time we were friends.

I moved to the window and pulled the curtains back to look at the night. It was at times like this that he came to me, times when I couldn’t keep my mind occupied enough to shut him out. As soon as I stopped being busy he would find his way back in and I was helpless to stop him.

I slumped down on the sofa and pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them and then resting my chin on them. A tear trickled down my cheek. I swiped at it viciously; I hated that he could still make me cry, I had cried far too many tears over Tommy.

Things had started to change between us when his wife had been shot and killed. Although Tommy had once told me that he wasn’t sure he had been in love with Helen or if he should have married her, I knew that her death would affect him, if nothing else she had been one of his closest friends, but I had expected to support him through his grief just as he had supported me when my father died. Instead he had turned his back on me and shut me out. He didn’t answer my calls, texts or emails, and he wouldn’t come to the door. I was worried sick about him but there was nothing I could do to tear down the wall that he had built between us. I hadn’t heard from him for such a long time and I had no idea where I stood.

When I first met Tommy I didn’t like him very much. He was Eton and Oxford educated, well bred, well spoken, he was even the sodding Eighth Earl of Asherton with a huge country estate in Cornwall, and I thought that he stood for everything that I despised in the world. I slowly discovered that I was wrong. We were two people who were thrown together by the powers that be in order to break us, but that plan failed. We were strangers who became colleagues, then partners, then friends. The more I got to know him the more I liked him. That’s not to say that we didn’t row; God did we row! We argued so much that workmates began to sarcastically refer to us as the old married couple. Sometimes our rows were more than bickering; they were full blown screaming matches that involved tears and hateful words, but we had some great times too. Sitting next to him in his car and playfully bantering on the way to crime scenes or to visit witnesses, huddling around a computer to read reports or look at photos. The hugs, him with his arm around me and me briefly leaning against his warm frame. These were the times that he made me feel special, that he made me feel as if I was one of the most important things in his life.

I liked it. I liked that he cared about me. I liked that he and I had something special that none of the others we worked with really understood. Maybe I was a fool; maybe he played me. All I knew was that he made my life that little bit brighter. I thought that we had developed a bond that no one and nothing could break; now I wasn’t so sure.

I spent my nights trying desperately to get Tommy out of my head but failing miserably. The more I tried not to think about him, the more I did, and the more I did, the more it hurt me. If there was an ounce of sense in this head of mine then I would forget about him and walk away, just as he had done. The thing was, a long time ago I had come to realise that the love of my life was Detective Inspector Tommy Lynley, and therefore I could never turn my back on him completely. I had never before felt for someone what I felt for Tommy. I had seen him at his worst and yet I was still in love with him, so what did that say about me?

It was driving me mad, him being so close and yet so far away. When I had last seen him, sitting on the bench on the hill, he had looked so sad, and I had wanted to be able to be there, to hold him, support him and secretly, love him. It broke my heart that things hadn’t turned out that way.

The more I thought about it the more I wanted to reach out to him again, and tell him exactly how I felt about the current situation, without mentioning that I was in love with him, I wasn’t that stupid! I understood that his heart was broken, but I couldn’t understand why he was ignoring me the way he was. If I had done something wrong, well he could at least have the decency to tell me that I had done something to destroy our friendship. As things currently stood I was just in limbo, hanging in nowhere land, not knowing if I would ever hear from him again, not knowing what the hell was going on in his world, and not knowing if I was even a part of it.

Before I fell asleep I found myself mentally planning what I would say to him. By the time I fell asleep I had managed to convince myself that contacting him was the only thing that I could do, even if I didn’t get a response. Then I would dream about making love to him and when I awoke I would feel heartbroken and tearful. He was already ignoring me, so there was absolutely no point in trying to reach him. He would more than likely just carry on ignoring me as he already was. I was spending far too much time caring about and thinking about someone who obviously didn’t need me at all.


End file.
